Religious clashes lead to 17 deaths in India
A fresh wave of clashes between Hindus and Muslims in India’s western state of Gujarat has left 17 dead in mob attacks and police shootings, officials said today.
At least 91 others were seriously injured, with burns and bullet wounds, said officers at the police control room in Ahmadabad, the state’s commercial capital.
The new killings brought the death toll to 850 in religious clashes that began on February 27, when Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindus returning from a religious pilgrimage.
Those killed on yesterday included nine Muslims who died in Ahmadabad when police fired into a swelling mob on the Hindu festival of Ramnavami, the birthday of the religion’s supreme deity.
